My Middle School Music Ensemble students have been learning the iconic “Morning” (sometimes called “Morning Mood”) by Edvard Grieg in preparation for the SCISA Music Festival this Thursday, 12 March 2026. I began toying with the main theme and came up with today’s piece.
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Happy Bandcamp Friday!
—TPP
I’m continuing to plug away at some compositions for a planned release, Koi Dance. This week I’m featuring a solemn but hopeful duet.
Yours portly is continuing to work on his collection of pond-based tunes, Koi Dance. I introduced some rosy red minnows to our koi pond about a month ago, which inspired today’s piece.
Dear readers,
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—TPP
I neglected to feature this week’s piece sooner, although it did show up in an addition of Phone it in Friday. Well, better late than never!
The structure of this piece is slightly unusual. It’s a string trio, but the violin doesn’t kick in until the second half of the piece, when it adds harmonies and a countermelody of sorts to the work.
I’m continuing to work on my pond-based pieces, and have a fourth piece completed. This duet incorporates whole tone scales, which possess a mystical, mysterious quality. The piece is broadly in Bb major, but the second and third sections feature some secondary dominants that, at times, push the key closer to D major. The whole tone scales also give a sense of atonality to sections of the piece, representing the mystery of moonlight.
Yours portly has been uploading some more of his original compositions to YouTube. This week, I’m featuring three pieces that are part of (so far) a koi pond triptych of compositions. I’ll be adding to this trio of pieces, so it won’t remain a triptych for long, but that’s a good way of conceptualizing it for now.
I’ve really enjoyed these three pieces, which are all for small, unorthodox chamber groups.
The koi pond at our new house has served as a source of immense inspiration for yours portly. I’ve spent many late nights researching various species of aquatic life that can thrive in our little pond ecosystem. I’m most excited about getting some Japanese Trapdoor Snails for our pond.
In the meantime, however, I’ve added some ramshorn snails to the pond already. They arrived in a bag from an eBay seller in Oklahoma, clinging to the walls of their watery shipping compartment. I drove them up one frosty night and gently plopped them into the pond, which inspired today’s new piece.
It’s a quick Lazy Sunday this week as Dr. Wife and I hunker down in the cold. I’m casting my gaze back to two posts from earlier this week, one based in the coolness of the watery depths, the other in the fiery crucible of the modern restaurant industry:
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
